Today’s Deep Thoughts on the pilgrimage.

So walking the Camino is a form of meditation, and a great time for introspection, but I’d be lying by omission if I let you think I was over here pondering The Mysteries of Life all the time. To be honest, I am usually thinking about the same random stuff I normally do (despite my efforts to “live in the Now,” thank you very much Eckhart Tolle) such as movies I’ve seen, places I’ve been, and the big one: conversations I have had, may have, or should have had.

You know that last one, where you think back to interactions and suddenly think of what you should have said. According to Chuck Palahniuk (the author of Fight Club and other, better books) the French have an expression for this that translates to “Spirit of the Stairs” because that’s when the right thing to say comes to you, when you’re on your way out.

I have to say “according to Chuck Palahniuk” because none of the French people I have ever asked about this have had the foggiest idea what I was talking about. They generally reply something along the lines of “Je ne sais pas what the fuck you’re talking about.” Excuse my French.

This morning it was singing new words to other songs. You know The Killers song about “Are we human, or are we dancing”? First it was “Are we tuna, or are we salmon…My roe are spawning, my scales are grey, and I’m on my way across the ocean, but am I a tuna, or am I a salmon?”

Then it was “Do you like Paul Newman, or do you prefer Ted Danson?”

It is blazingly hot lately, and the water fountains are of three types: labeled as potable, labeled as “without sanitary guarantees,” or unlabeled pipes sticking out of hillsides. I chugged a couple liters from one of these mystery fountains and spent the next twenty minutes singing (to the tune of Happy Birthday)